


A Finite Number of Elbows

by Barkour



Category: SAKANA (Webcomic)
Genre: Established Relationship, Future Fic, M/M, sex comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 10:22:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10942536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barkour/pseuds/Barkour
Summary: Whatever Yuudai expected of his first time with Taisei, this sure wasn't it.





	A Finite Number of Elbows

**Author's Note:**

> Content: References to a past abusive relationship. Self-esteem struggles.
> 
> With guest appearances from Jiro, Taro, and Sweet, Darling Hime.

Of course Jiro had advice on how Yuudai should seduce Taisei. 

"He gets nervous and he'll try to drink a few beers but you can't let him have more than one or he won't stop!" "He cries a lot when he's really happy so don't freak out." "You have to cuddle with him afterwards! He's sensitive! You can't just roll off him and walk out!"

At the last, Yuudai picked up a neatly gutted and de-boned tuna and threw it at Jiro's face.

"Stop talking! Idiot!" His face burned; he wished he could peel it off. Then Yuudai could throw that at Jiro, too. "How do you know these things? What are you, a stalker?"

Jiro clutched at his left eye. "It's a cheap apartment! The walls are thin!" 

"So wear headphones! If you're in the apartment--"

"I'm going out tonight with Chie," Jiro protested, "I don't want to listen to you-- do-- things to Taisei! _But you have to be gentle_."

He got another fish to the face for that one. 

"Stop hitting me!"

"Stop hitting me!" Yuudai mimicked. "I hope you throw up on her feet."

Jiro lowered his arms and looked at Yuudai with an unbelievable amount of disgust for a coward.

"You're such a jerk," said Jiro. "I don't know why I bother."

"Telling me how to screw my own boyfriend? Yeah, I don't know why either," said Yuudai. "Get back to work! You're scaring away the old women!"

He thought he saw Jiro glaring at him again but when Yuudai whipped around to hiss, Jiro was smiling his seasick smile at an office lady with pink-painted nails. Good. Yuudai hoped he threw up on her shoes, too.

What did Jiro think of Yuudai, anyway? Yuudai stewed the rest of his shift, then on the train. What, like Yuudai was some scary wolf who'd gobble poor, sweet, tasty Taisei up? Pretending Jiro was the sort of person who'd think something like that made it easier to ignore that he was sweating heavily under his jacket. 

What if he _was_ a scary wolf? As Yuudai fed Hime, something like a convulsion ran through him. 

"Mow," she complained. "Wow-mow."

"Sorry, sweetie," he gasped. "Daddy's having a heart attack."

Hime trilled, shook food from her ears, and deigned to lick his jutting ankle. He rolled up the top of the food bag. The paper crinkled. His hands were trembling. 

Imagine a nightmare parade of funhouse mirror Taisei. Taisei in a suit, snickering as he looked down at Yuudai. Taisei with tears in his eyes, confessing it had all been a joke. Taisei rolling off him and walking out. Call me later if you want. Arata smiled at him.

Yuudai started. Hime made an impatient noise and moved over his foot, returning to her dinner. The tag on her new collar jingled lightly on the bowl's lip. Two soft tings. 

I'm the only one who can put up with you. 

Hime purred at his feet. Yuudai took a deep breath then let it out again. The walls of his apartment met at their usual angles. The space was tiny and thinly lit, but it was his space, and there was no one leaning in too close and smiling with too many teeth.

"That's not true," he said. "And fuck off. You can't-- screw with me anymore. Asshole!" 

"Yooooow?"

He sighed and bent down to scoop up Hime, though she fussed at being separated from her food. 

"Not you, Hime. It's that--" He thought furiously then, ready to spew obscenities, he glanced at Hime and her enormous, innocent eyes and how the left one tended to cross. 

"Mean old jerk," he finished lamely. "Okay. Daddy knows. You can eat your dinner. I'm going to go change into something... that doesn't smell like fish."

It would have been easier if he'd asked Taisei to come over here. Scrubbing at his face in the shower, Yuudai realized Jiro wasn't the coward. He was the coward. If he'd just said, hey, do you want to come over, then he wouldn't have to worry about Jiro coming home early, and if Taisei heard Jiro come in and decided to say hi, and oh, God, then Jiro would see Yuudai naked and Yuudai would _have to kill him_ and then Taisei would _cry_ , and it would be Yuudai's fault.

Hime liked Taisei! Taisei lived with two guys who worked at the fish market so it wasn't as if he cared about how an apartment smelled! Ahhhhhhhh! thought Yuudai. He stuck his head under the shower head again.

And, he thought as he pulled on the nicest sweater he owned, which only had three loose stitches and one of them in the armpit so if he just kept his arm down all night nobody would ever know; and it wasn't like they'd even agreed to have sex. They hadn't said anything about it when Taisei had come by the stall yesterday with his hair slicked back and a tie around his neck and asked Yuudai if he'd like to come over and watch a movie and even stay the night, maybe! 

Yuudai kissed Hime good-bye, hugged her for good luck, added another serving to her food bowl as she chirped greedily, and locked up behind him. Maybe he was imagining it. Maybe he was assuming they'd have sex. It was just that Taisei was very physically forward. 

Maybe that whole necking for an hour on the couch shirtless while Taisei wrapped his possibly triple-jointed limbs around Yuudai thing, that was just how Taisei expressed friendship. _Maybe_ when Taisei had said, "Wow! Tanaka! Is it okay if I call you Yuudai when we're making out? Okay? Yuudai, wow! You're so good at this!" and then a few minutes later, "Do you think we could keep doing this for a while? And would it be amenable to our ongoing relations if I, um, touched your butt?" maybe that was how Taisei said, "I really enjoy our friendship and the many benefits it offers."

Did Taisei even know what 'boyfriend' meant? Jiro said Taisei's longest relationship had lasted for two whole weeks in middle school, so-- Oh, god, what if he was a virgin?

"No, dumbass," Yuudai muttered as he rode the elevator up to the apartment, "Jiro heard him-- Augh! Don't think about Jiro!"

He rang the doorbell. Then he knocked, uselessly, as Taisei yanked the door open and nearly took Yuudai's knuckles to his chest.

"Yuudai!" said Taisei happily, "you're here!" and he grabbed Yuudai by his outstretched wrist and pulled him inside the apartment. 

That was always how it was with Taisei: as if he were genuinely and uncomplicatedly happy to see Yuudai, as if it were easy to look at Yuudai and smile and hold his hand while Yuudai kicked off his shoes. As if, as if, as if: 

Taisei wanted him.

"And they were all very happy to agree to the merger," said Taisei, "so that was really great."

"Of course they were happy," Yuudai muttered. He reddened under Taisei's brief and cheery glance from the little kitchen. "I mean because you were-- probably very-- I mean--" He hadn't intended to say it sarcastically. His throat was drying up.

Taisei finished sorting the snack bowls and offered Yuudai one. His hair hung in front of his eyes. He was still smiling, but more softly and with fewer teeth. He brushed once, twice at his bangs, only for them to flop down again.

"Anyway," said Taisei. "I'll stop bragging."

Yuudai looked sharply at him. 

"How was your day? You probably had to do a lot more than I did. You're out on the floor! Was anybody weird?"

"Was anybody weird, are you _joking_ ," said Yuudai, following him to the couch, "this one guy, he was wearing diagonal stripes, and the douchiest hat, and he wanted to put his hands inside the fish--"

Taisei put the movie on. Yuudai talked. 

"No way!" said Taisei. He returned from the refrigerator with two beers. "Security said that to you?"

Yuudai accepted the offered beer. "They're jerks and they don't know how to do their jobs. And any idiot could do their jobs."

"Someone should talk to them."

"I know!" said Yuudai. "It's like, do they even listen to me?"

"I could talk to them. People listen to me."

"Because you roll over them."

"No-o-o," said Taisei. "I don't, do I? Not me-e-e." He pouted and curled his head over Yuudai and slithered an arm around Yuudai's waist. 

"You think you can get away with it just because you're..." Yuudai reddened again, stupidly.

"I'm what?" Taisei squeezed even closer. He was wearing a distressed HYPRAMAN!! LIVE 2014 t-shirt and skinny jeans, and he radiated heat. "What am I? You have to tell me. Oh, is it something nice? Hmmmm, can I guess? I'm--"

"Talking too loud," said Yuudai, "I can't hear the movie."

"Aw," said Taisei. He coiled nearer still. "Okay."

Yuudai had no idea what movie they were watching. He made an attempt at paying attention for a minute, maybe three.

"You don't have to tell me," Taisei whispered into his hair. "What did the customer do after that?"

Yuudai lasted another five seconds.

"And then the old fart who wanted the eels, he said--"

At some point his feet wound up on Taisei's lap. Taisei hummed and exclaimed and as he listened he rubbed at Yuudai's feet. His thumbs dug deep into the arches. Yuudai sighed. Taisei rubbed his cheek along Yuudai's head and made a noise not dissimilar to how Hime voiced her pleasure after dinner.

"Oh." Taisei lifted his head. Yuudai managed not to kick him in protest. "Do you want another beer?"

"No, I'm fine."

"Okay, then just for me." He unfolded one endless leg. His knobby fingers squeezed at Yuudai's toes. 

Yuudai nearly forgot; then he remembered and caught Taisei by the wrist. At the touch they both froze. Taisei blinked owlishly, his one visible eye wide. Yuudai couldn't think of what to say. 'Don't get drunk because I want to have sex with you'?

Instead he blurted: "Cute. You're cute. That's what I was going to say earlier." He couldn't stop talking. "And what I meant was that you're so, you're really nice, so of course they're happy to do the merger, but I'm not-- I can't-- say things." 

His face was going to melt off. His hand burned. Taisei's fingers curled up, one each at a time, the tips brushing the side of Yuudai's gripping hand. He looked at Taisei's wrist then up at Taisei's face and then he threw Taisei's hand from him.

Taisei's browner face had flushed, high on his cheeks. He brushed at his bangs again and then pressed those long hands flat to his cheeks. 

"You're so nice," said Taisei, sounding miserable, "why are you so nice?"

Yuudai stared.

Taisei dragged his hands down his face, pulling his cheeks hangdog. "You're so-o-o nice to me. And I'm just loud and probably talking over you..."

"I'm not nice!"

"You are," said Taisei, somehow even droopier, "you think you aren't, but you _are_ , and I'm terrible-- The worst-- A _true villain_ \--"

"What are you talking about?" Yuudai slapped at the couch. "Who said you were a villain? I just told you a really rude story about an old woman!"

Taisei, hair flying with the violence of his head shake, looked at Yuudai with teary eyes. Panic! said Yuudai's brain. 

"I had ulterior motives!" Taisei wailed, and he threw himself shaking and near to weeping across Yuudai's lap. His butt was even with Yuudai's chin, and Yuudai tried desperately to ignore it. "Yuudai-- Tanaka-- _I didn't want to watch a movie._ "

"Oh?" said Yuudai. He looked fixedly at the television. Two women were embracing passionately. He looked at the ceiling instead. 

"No," Taisei confessed. "I wanted to... I wanted to..."

Break up with you, Yuudai thought: but it was Arata's voice he heard whispering it deep in his ears, so deep he felt it in his own throat. Tell you I was just joking. Let you know that you're a huge jerk and I can't go out with someone who laughs at an old woman who sat on some fish. 

It didn't seem to matter much that he knew Taisei wasn't the sort of person to be cruel. Fear ate at Yuudai anyway. Push him away, he thought. Before he can say anything else.

Yuudai put a hand on Taisei's shoulder, but Taisei lurched upright with sudden violence, and he grabbed Yuudai by his shoulders.

"I wanted to do it!" said Taisei.

The women were breathlessly telling each other: what? 

"What?" said Yuudai.

With all the suddenness of before, Taisei caved in to himself, melting down the couch. His hands slipped down Yuudai's arms then away.

" _It_ ," he said.

"Wait," said Yuudai. "Wait. I need to-- You wanted to--"

"But it was wrong of me not to tell you," Taisei said to his hands. "Or to ask you first. I thought if I had another beer then I could ask you, but then I'd have to tell you that I've never... with another guy... and girls always expect me to take charge..."

Yuudai said, "Um," and then he said, "Uh," and then he cleared his throat and he said, more nervously than he might have hoped to say it, "Did you still want to?"

Taisei peered between his fingers at Yuudai. "What?"

"With--" He cleared his throat again. "With me."

"Yeah," said Taisei. "Yes. Of course."

"Of course," he echoed. "With me." It sounded needy to him, and Yuudai winced as it came out of his mouth.

But Taisei only unfurled his fingers along his own cheeks, a dreamy sort of gesture, and said, "I like you, Yuudai. I really like you, a lot."

"You do," said Yuudai.

"Yeah," said Taisei. He looked up through his too-thin eyelashes, through his tousled bangs, the hair he'd swept at again and again. "Do you, um, like me?"

Yuudai opened his mouth to say what do you think? and caught himself and said, with more honesty, though it pricked at his mouth:

"Yeah, I-- I like you. Taisei."

Taisei began to smile again, shy at the corners. "You do?"

"Yeah," said Yuudai, "I do."

Taisei dropped a hand. His fingers rested along the back of Yuudai's hand, the tips brushing at his wrist, the beads of his bracelet.

"Is it okay if I kiss you?"

Yuudai licked at the backs of his teeth, trying to wet away the thorns, the creeping stings, the anticipatory needles that picked at his gums. 

"Sure," said Yuudai. "I guess. If you want to."

Taisei's smile pulled crooked to the right, his cheek rumpling and a few teeth showing, yes, the teeth, but not too many of them, and anyway, Yuudai didn't mind a toothy smile if it came from Taisei.

"Awesome," said Taisei.

"Just shut up and do it already," said Yuudai. 

Taisei stroked a thumb along the inside of Yuudai's left wrist as he leaned in. His breath moved warmly across Yuudai's cheek. Beer smell, the dried squid snack, some lingering trace of toothpaste: Yuudai wrinkled his nose but tipped his chin up anyway. A chaste press of lips, a moment's wait: as if it were the opening movement for a negotiation. Yuudai exhaled. The tension clinging to the back of his neck tightened then, as he breathed out and turned his right hand over to grip Taisei's elbow and rose closer with parting lips, it eased. 

Taisei slipped his thumb under the beaded bracelet at Yuudai's wrist. The edge of a thumb nail scratched a thin line along the bone. 

"Oh, sorry," Taisei said, withdrawing, his lips a red suggestion, "I didn't mean to scratch you. Are you--" 

"It's fine!" Yuudai flashed his wrist. "It's whatever. It was a nail. Look, there isn't even a line."

Taisei's visible eye creased. "Okay, good! It's just that I know I'm kind of clumsy and sometimes I get too excited and then we fall off the couch and..."

Yuudai, noted genius, said, "Then we'll just move off the couch. Problem solved! Great plan! Okay! Let's go!" He stood, smiling and hoping it didn't look so much as though he were deranged or a hyena or a deranged hyena.

Taisei stood too, a process that involved unfolding his long legs and leaning forward and pushing off the couch with his lanky hands at the ends of his egregious arms. He cast a shadow behind him, thrown out by the flickering light of the TV, a lean black thing that wavered. His face was flushed. He rubbed his palms along his jeans. They rasped. The swell of an ear showed, hair half-tucked behind it. Slouching, face tipped down, he managed to look up through his lashes at Yuudai.

Yuudai, noted genius, went blank.

"Okay," Taisei said, "we could, um, go to..." He made a gesture. "If you wanted to, but we don't have to, if you don't want to, that's okay too--"

Here is a truth: perhaps somewhere inside of Yuudai what he imagined was that Taisei would bend and slip an arm around Yuudai's back and another arm behind his knees, and he would lift Yuudai in his arms and carry him away like the romantic hero in an old film. What he imagined was that it could be uncomplicated, a thing done without question or negotiation: but that was how Arata would have done it. That was, maybe, why Arata had been so appealing at the start. 

So another truth, then, might be that what Yuudai wanted was precisely what Taisei was: someone loud and cheery and deceptively simple, who was difficult to resist not because he weighted you down but because he was so happy to see you. Someone who looked at you and worried he'd hurt you. Someone who looked at Yuudai like that.

Yuudai's skin ached. The tension in his neck had returned. He took a breath and then he reached out to Taisei. His fingers curled around Taisei's bared elbows. The skin of his right elbow was drier than that of his left. 

Taisei, startled, said, "Oh! Hahaha--" and tucked his chin again, and Yuudai rose up on his own naked toes and kissed Taisei the way he wanted to kiss Taisei: openly, and hotly, and clumsy with the fragmented sense memory of Arata grabbing Yuudai by the wrists and pulling him in.

If Taisei's kiss said is this okay with you, does this make you happy, then Yuudai's kiss must say: tell me I'm not like him, tell me this is what you want. 

Taisei sighed. Long-limbed and bony-spined, he melted around Yuudai. The turned out ends of his over-long hair brushed dark as a curtain of rain around Yuudai's face. Yuudai shifted his weight and tipped his head and ran his tongue along the outside face of Taisei's teeth. 

A shudder moved Taisei. He wrapped an arm about Yuudai's waist. Taisei's first finger turned in toward the dip made by his hip bone. It fit there, slid just so beneath the band of Yuudai's jeans. The heat of the finger, the imagined texture of the callus, scorched his skin even through boxers. 

"Yuu-uu-dai," murmured Taisei. 

It was Yuudai who shuddered then. He gripped Taisei's shoulder; his hand ached with the force; he tried to gentle the touch but Taisei bent his shoulder, _he_ gentled.

"Yuudai," said Taisei again, softly on his breath, like he couldn't help it or as if he didn't know he was speaking. "Yuudai. I like you. I really like you. I like you so much. You're so cool. I like it when you grab me. Why don't you grab me more? I like the way you taste. You always taste so nice, even after work..."

Yuudai's face burned. "S-stop talking!" he hissed. "That's not-- Why are you-- You don't have to say anything." 

"But I want to," Taisei protested. He'd a puppy look. His other arm snuck around Yuudai's shoulders so that one hand cradled the far hip and the other hand cradled a far shoulder. "I like to."

"It's just--" Yuudai was burning, not only his face. His skin would flake off. His hair would melt into yellow clumps. "You don't--have to."

"Well," said Taisei. "I want to."

Yuudai struggled. His throat was sore. "I don't-- I can't say-- Look, it's-- Embarrassing, if I--"

Taisei's mouth made a sad line. 

"You don't have to say anything." He said it so easily. "It's okay. Yuudai... You know I can feel it, right?"

"What?" Yuudai stiffened. He'd worn his tightest pair of jeans, there wasn't enough room in the cut to--

"When you kiss me," said Taisei. "How much you like me."

"You can't possibly--"

"I have very sensitive lips!" Taisei reported brightly. "Ask Jiro!"

"I'm not-- Why would-- Have you kissed _Jiro_?"

Taisei shrugged and smiled. "So I can feel it. How nice you are. And how careful. I know you don't want to hurt me."

"That's not--" Something ugly welled up in Yuudai. He tried to stop it. He said, "How do you know I don't want to hurt you?" and another ugly thing inside of him said stop, stop, you're being too needy, he's tired of this.

But Taisei only shrugged again and took a shuffling step forward to wiggle his big toe on top of Yuudai's toe.

"Because you're a good person." Taisei nodded. "I can feel it. When you kiss me."

"You can't feel that," said Yuudai, as Taisei began to sway. And somewhere deeper still underneath all that wretched ugliness was something sweeter because what Yuudai said next, even though it seared his face, was: "You can't feel how much I like you when we-- when we kiss."

"Aw, why not?" Taisei pouted. "I told you. My lips are really, really sens--"

Yuudai croaked it out: "Because I like you even more than that."

Taisei said: "Oh."

"I didn't say that," said Yuudai, whose whole face was now actively on fire. He could smell the smoke. "You can't tell anyone that I--"

"Oh!" said Taisei, and he kissed Yuudai again.

A languid sweep of lips, mouthing: a breath: then Taisei tilted his head to one side and Yuudai's hand slipped around his nape, and the shape of it deepened. A harder thing. Sharper. Yuudai bit at the corner of Taisei's mouth and Taisei only sighed as if in a dream and drooped. Those ends of his hair tickled at Yuudai's cheek. Taisei was whispering again, a wandering loop de loop of sweet things Yuudai couldn't believe-- didn't want to believe-- believed--

Taisei untucked Yuudai's shirt. Where was Taisei's shirt? On the floor, there. He was skinny with a soft chest, broad chest, shoulders set so widely even as they made a trembling, down-facing horseshoe. A smooth, rounded jawline: that, Yuudai laid sharp bites along, as Taisei said again and again I like you, I like you, I like you. 

Yuudai couldn't speak. He knew he would say don't. Don't like me. Don't want me. I hate you. Go away. I'm afraid of you. So he pressed kisses to the spaces he'd bit to say instead, thank you. I like you. I want you. I think that I could love you. I'm so afraid.

Did Taisei hear it? Did he understand? He unwound his arms and cradled Yuudai's crueller jaw in his hands and pressed another of those little kisses to Yuudai's parted lips, a chaste kiss that landed too on his teeth. 

Shyly, Taisei said, "Um... If you wanted... My room is--"

"So go," said Yuudai, and he closed the distance with savagery.

What do you want? How do you like it? They'd always wanted Taisei to take charge; and Arata had never given control. What would you take? What would you give?

Yuudai fumbled with Taisei's belt buckle. The metal tongue pricked at his finger. In his mouth, Taisei's tongue was warm and slow-stroking. This is what I want. This is how I like it. Yuudai's gut roiled. He yanked the belt from its buckle. Taisei laughed and made Yuudai let go so he could pull Yuudai's sweater the rest of the way off. This, Taisei loosely folded and set aside on a low-set bureau.

"How," said Yuudai. He licked at his lips. Then, distracted by the way Taisei's cherry bitten lips turned out, he licked those too. "How do you-- What do you--"

A clean room, of all things. A small glass case with figurines inside. A set of drawers, a set of shelves. A futon on the floor. Yuudai looked up at Taisei. His heart juddered in his chest. Taisei, shirtless, lifted a hand and touched it to his own breast, the other hand tucked into his crooked elbow. 

Oh, god, thought Yuudai. Oh, my god. I get to have this? He wanted to run. He wanted to stay. He shouldn't have stopped Taisei from getting a second set of beers. 

Yuudai crossed his own arms. The skinniness of his own body felt hungry and hard.

"Well, what--" He swallowed and tried to smooth out his scowl. "What do you want to do?"

Taisei tapped his fingers off rhythm against his breast. The knot in his throat jumped.

"There's something I'd like to try. But I don't know if I'll be any good..." He blossomed. "But there's no time like now to start practicing!"

"Start practicing what?" Yuudai eyed Taisei. Yuudai was realizing they hadn't really talked about anything involving-- places, and-- things, that Taisei had mentioned he'd never done-- things, in-- places with a guy before. "Uh, maybe we should talk about anything that you've maybe not seen before."

"I've seen penises!" said Taisei. He'd slid from positivity to an almost manic focus. It was the type of intensity that characterized what Jiro and Taro dubbed Business Mode Taisei, and it made Yuudai want to cross his legs and fall out a window. 

"And while I lack hands-on experience with outside sources," he continued, "it's my belief that bringing energy, a go-getter attitude, and an open mind to the table never hurts!" He leaned in with a hand cupped before his mouth to add, "Also I read a lot of BL manga online last week."

"That's--" Yuudai clutched at his own head. "BL manga isn't-- That's not a how to guide!"

"Aww," said Taisei, "but some of it was really nice."

"It's pornography!" He threw his hands up. "For fujoshi!"

Taisei tilted. "What's a fujoshi?"

Yuudai verged on an explosion. "Do you think we're going to just--" stick it in and then go to the E.R., he didn't finish. He covered his face and tried to remember his mother's suggested breathing techniques. 

"Yuudai?" 

He felt Taisei's hovering, hands near to his shoulders. Yuudai fisted his hands in his hair; then he forced his fingers flat and sighed and slid his hands down to his chin.

"What," he said, "did you want to do?"

Taisei, his belt loosed, jeans unzipped, long and bony toes curled against the floor, looked sheepish.

"Well. I thought that it would be cool to... you know..."

"What?"

Taisei dropped his finger. "Go down."

"Oh." Yuudai tried to recenter. His feet were cold. His chest, too. He wished he'd kept his sweater on. Well, this was all right too. He glanced around. "Sure. That's-- okay. Um, do you have a pillow?" Ugh, and he'd worn jeans. He only _owned_ jeans. Well, it wasn't the first time he'd gone to work with chafed knees, so--

Taisei chirruped, "Oh, no, I'm okay," and then he thumped to his knees. 

Yuudai absolutely did not black out at all.

"Holy shit," he said in a very reasonable voice, "what are you doing!" and halfway through his very reasonable voice cracked and shot into a higher register.

"You should let me buy you a new belt!" said Taisei. "Gehehe! Wow! Did you sew this back together?"

"Get up!" Yuudai yelped. "You shouldn't-- I can undo it-- You big-- giraffe-- Your knees--" 

He tried to slap Taisei's squirrely hands away. Instead he slapped Taisei across the top of his head.

Taisei grunted and lost his balance. His arm flailed. An elbow plowed into Yuudai's thigh. Yuudai yelped and toppled forward over Taisei's back. Taisei, apologizing and trying to grab at the back of a shirt Yuudai wasn't wearing, grabbed at his ass instead.

Denim made an atrocious sound when it ripped.

Yuudai landed on his face, butt in the air. At least he'd jammed his nose to the futon rather than the floor.

"Uh-oh," said Taisei from behind. "Um."

Yuudai slumped over. A stirring breeze hit the inside of his thigh.

"It's fine," he said. "This is probably how it's supposed to be." Face in the futon, ass in the air, and Taisei tearing up behind him. 

"Oh, _no_ ," Taisei moaned. He flopped beside Yuudai. "Yuudai, I'm so sorry. I'm just so-- Yuudai! I ripped the whole pocket off!"

"Ha," said Yuudai. His nose itched; he wriggled it. "Huh. Ha-ha." He turned his face up to peer at Taisei, who was looking forlornly at, yes, the entire left butt pocket of Yuudai's jeans, and a length from the inseam too. 

Yuudai drew a breath in through his nose and out it spluttered, on a winding laugh that, once it got started, kept going. Taisei flapped the pocket and its tail. Like an eel, it just flopped over again. Yuudai laughed harder.

"I ruined your jeans!" Taisei wailed.

"N-no, it's--" Yuudai grappled for him, trying to use Taisei's greater height to leverage himself up. Instead they collapsed together half onto the futon, Yuudai convulsing with increasingly wild laughter against Taisei.

"Ahahaha! Oh, my god! You must've--" He gasped for air. "Really-- wanted me--"

A confused look knotted Taisei's face, but he too began to laugh.

"I think I have some old sweatpants that might fit..."

"Ohhhh, I'm gonna barf," said Yuudai, "hahahaha, holy fuck, you _ripped my pants off_!"

"Gahaha--" Taisei looked from Yuudai, heaving on top of him, to the denim remains he still clutched. A huge grin began to split his face. "Wow! Hahaha! Holy cow, I did!"

"What's wrong with you?" Yuudai rolled off him and unfastened his belt. "I told you I could just take my pants off."

"Maybe we could sew it back on?"

"No, it's fine," said Yuudai. "You had sweatpants, right."

"Yeah, but they're kind of long in the leg."

"No shit, look at you!" Yuudai, still spilling over, glanced. 

Taisei was flush-faced, darkened with laughter and shining anyway. His pants were still undone, loose off his hips, and between his legs, he--

Taisei creepy-crawled closer on his shoulders. "Can I kiss you again?" 

Yuudai diverted his gaze. "Sure. I mean, I'm not stopping you. Whatever."

"Ahhhh," Taisei breathed, "you're so-o-o cute," and he pursed his lips and kissed the tip of Yuudai's nose. Then, as Yuudai sputtered, he gave the same treatment to the left corner of his mouth and to the right corner, and then, slowly and very softly, to the scar marking his cheek.

"What are you--" Yuudai's hands fisted at Taisei's back. He could push him away. He didn't. "You don't have to--"

But he wanted him to, and so he let Taisei kiss the scar and then the unblemished cheek opposite, and he closed his eyes when Taisei kissed him just as lightly on his lips, so he could pretend that this was something Yuudai could keep. 

You can have this. You can keep this. You can give this, too. And maybe it was selfish to think, this is mine, this is mine, when Taisei loved everyone so freely, but he wanted to be selfish. This is mine, he thought when he wound his fingers in Taisei's mess of black hair. This was his too, when Taisei spattered kisses across his chest. 

He couldn't own Taisei. He wouldn't own him. He wasn't Arata, no matter how many shadows he saw in the mirror. But he could have this. And, he thought in a voice that sounded like his own voice, you can have tomorrow, and the day after that, and as many days as he wanted if he could only just be the person who could love Taisei. 

Taisei stuck his tongue in Yuudai's belly button, and Yuudai kicked a leg. His foot jammed in Taisei's gut. Taisei made a huffing sound and stuck out his tongue and said, "Hm! Gross."

"Then why'd you put your tongue in there?"

"I don't know." Taisei looked thoughtful as he ran his tongue over his teeth. "I thought it would be _sexy_." He said this word in English.

"Well, if you don't like how that tasted, then-- And I just showered!"

"Oh, good, me too!" said Taisei, and he peeled back Yuudai's desecrated jeans. "Gaha, aw! You have kitty cats on your boxers. Wow, that one looks like Hime! That's a Persian, right?"

"Please don't bring my daughter into this," said Yuudai.

"Oh, you're right," said Taisei. "That's inappropriate. I should be a more respectful uncle." He winked his visible eye. 

"Ha! 'Uncle'--" He clapped a hand to his mouth. Taisei's thumb fitted beneath Yuudai's cock, into the tented shadow. "Grmmrngmph," said Yuudai.

"Oh, there's a calico on the underside!" said Taisei, peering as he stroked his thumb up-up-up.

"Mmnfhgh," said Yuudai. He bit into the heel of his hand. If he let go, he was going to smack someone, probably himself. Too close! Too much! He wasn't even naked yet! 

Taisei huffed two hard breaths, like a man garnering strength before a physical challenge, and he yanked Yuudai's boxers down almost to his knees in a single drag. Yuudai, hauled up for this, yelped.

"Oh, neat," said Taisei, "you're blond down here too. Ahaha, I thought maybe it would be brown!"

Yuudai struggled up on his elbows. He opened his mouth to say something cutting like, you were thinking about my balls? and then remembered this was his boyfriend, whom he was dating, and liked very much, and who for some reason liked Yuudai very much, so much so that he had indeed thought about Yuudai's balls. Yuudai closed his mouth. 

He immediately opened it again. "Do you have, uh, a con--"

"Aw, you have a little freckle down here," Taisei cooed. "Hey, there's another one! Wow, that's so awesome, it's like a constellation!"

No one had ever suggested Yuudai had constellated balls to him before.

"What," he said, stupidly, "on my balls?" and then he made a noise like a hyena being slowly choked out by a professional wrestler, as Taisei stroked a path across Yuudai's sac.

"Even your dick is cool," said Taisei, to a dick that Yuudai would, if pressed, describe as A Dick, and also None Of Your Business, Fucker. Until Taisei had started connecting the dots, Yuudai had not known he had freckled balls. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with that information except hope that whatever Taisei had drawn between the dots was something badass and not the poop emoji.

He was picturing the poop emoji when Taisei stretched his mouth out like a shark and dove down on his dick. Yuudai shrieked. Hot! Wet! What the fuck! Taisei immediately pulled off, coughing.

"That was dumb!" said Taisei, between hacks.

"Are you going to throw up?" said Yuudai, and, "What were you thinking, you can't just swallow it!" 

"I can eat a whole pocky in one go!"

"My dick is not pocky!"

Taisei ignored him. "I'm gonna try again."

"Don't bite my dick off!"

"Whoops, here I go!" said Taisei. He only went halfway down this time, and Yuudai went violently still. The inside of Taisei's mouth was slick, hot and slick, tightly funneled and Yuudai had no idea what he was supposed to do-- 

Taisei pulled off again. "Ugh, why does it taste like that?"

Yuudai clawed at his own face, his hair, his idiot ears that he hated, he hated so very much. 

"Thanks! I'm glad you hate it!"

"I just didn't think it would taste like that."

"Did you think it would taste _sweet_?"

If anything, Taisei looked glum. "I don't know. I thought maybe it would taste better than..."

"Well, I'm really happy you hate how _my dick tastes_ \--"

"Aw, I don't hate it." Taisei's eyes narrowed. He rubbed his finger absently across his lip. "I haven't really tasted enough of it to know if I hate it. So, for research purposes--"

"Look," said Yuudai, "could we just jack each other off and maybe-- hug, or, we don't have to cuddle, but it could be nice, I guess--"

Taisei set his jaw. "No. I made you feel bad, and I didn't think I'd like French beer but I do like it, so all I need is more exposure!"

"Meaning--"

"Put your hand in my hair," said Taisei. He crossed his eyes to look at Yuudai's penis. "If I'm doing okay then pull on the right side! And if I'm doing not okay then pull on the left side." As he spoke, he rolled down the very top of the foreskin, with all the showmanship someone would bring to unwrapping a straw.

Lost, Yuudai said, "My right or your right?"

"Ummm, your right!" and that, it seemed, was enough discussion for Taisei.

Yuudai had almost as little experience receiving blowjobs as Taisei did re: giving them. Arata had doled out oral sparingly and with minimal effort, and that night with Shigeru, it hadn't been a particular interest of Yuudai's. Before Arata there had been a few fumbling encounters in locker rooms or outside clubs where no one cared much about ID. 

Still, Yuudai could say with a great deal of certainty that this was the worst blowjob he'd ever received. Taisei had enthusiasm. He also had teeth he didn't always cover, and a fascination with depth that led to another bout of gagging and then a third. Too much spit. It made his face shine. He ignored the glans, and the hand that cradled Yuudai's balls did so loosely, as if an afterthought. He kept _tickling_ Yuudai.

So why was it Yuudai's breath came so quickly to him? His chest throbbed and ached; his were heavy, too tight. Taisei's thin eyelashes were black on his cheeks. It wasn't the sight of his dick passing into Taisei's mouth that spiked in his gut, but the thinking noises that Taisei made and the way his nose scrunched. Yuudai's thighs itched with anticipation for the not infrequent jabs of Taisei's elbows when he shifted. Helplessly, Yuudai pulled at the right. Taisei pulled away again for air. 

"How's that? Is that good?"

Yuudai said, "Yeah. It's great. You're really good," because his heart was bubbling over.

"Really? You think so?" Taisei tossed his head so his hair fell back from his face. His eyes lidded; his smile pulled rakishly to one side. "Tachibana clinches another exciting venture. But wait! The paperwork's not done! Can the merger go through? Not unless Hypraman can defeat The Pole!"

"No! No Hypraman!" but Yuudai was, horribly, laughing as he said it, struck by the goofy way that Taisei winked at him and smoldered.

"It is I, Hypraman!" Taisei rose up on his palms. Yuudai's fingers curled in his hair. "The Pole may be a mighty foe, but he can't stand tall against my ultimate technique!"

And recklessly, made light, still laughing, Yuudai said, "Oh, yeah? I think I can take your ultimate technique."

"Then prepare yourself!" Taisei sat back and made a series of dramatic gestures. "For my ultimate technique!" In English he said: "Private Kiss Shower!" and he bent to smack a kiss on to the head of Yuudai's cock.

Yuudai found a new wellspring of laughter. Taisei, undeterred, kissed the lip of the head, the vein that ran beneath, a shower, yes, of kisses here on the shaft then lower then higher again, absurd and over-noisy kisses to his balls and the creases of his thighs and the freckles he'd never known. His lips dragged. Heat sparked in fits through Yuudai.

"But The Pole is unmoved!" said Taisei in dismay. 

"What, was--was that all you got?" Yuudai wiped at his eyes. More giggles spilled out at the beetled look Taisei gave him. 

Taisei, holding that look, posed with his first finger and thumb an L to cradle his chin.

"I have one more move," he said gravely. "But it's risky..."

"Well, if you're scared, Hypraman..."

"Gahahaha! Even when Hypraman is afraid, he knows that he must stand up for what is right!"

"So, like, sucking me off," said Yuudai.

Taisei deflated. "Yuu-u-dai. Like defeating The Pole! With my--" A flurry of poorly coordinated hand signals. "Second Ultimate Technique! Healing Suction Kiss!"

"Healing what the what?" Yuudai wheezed. "Stop, oh, my god, I'm going to throw up."

Taisei declared, "Hypraman cannot stop!" and he stuck his head down again and: well, he had said suction, and that was what he did, and Yuudai had a moment and half another to enjoy the gut-punch pleasure of Taisei doing _that_ with his wide, happy mouth; and then he came without warning. 

It was an embarrassment. He hadn't thought he was close. He was laughing and then Taisei had run his tongue flat over the slit in his cock, and everything had ignited. Lights blew out in the back of his head.

Yuudai was saying, "Oh, fuck, I'm so-- I'm sorry, I should've-- nnrgh," as Taisei came up, sputtering again, a white pool of come dripping from his mouth and his chin, and Yuudai's evil, traitorous dick managed another thin rope, and now he was definitely going to die when he remembered how to move his arms and/or legs. 

"Hey, that was a _lot_ ," said Taisei. He wiped at his face with the back of his arm.

Very faintly Yuudai said, "Thanks. Uh, sorry." 

Taisei frowned at his come-smeared arm. He examined it and, while Yuudai was trying to remember how to breathe, Taisei licked at it.

Yuudai said, "Ahhhhhh what the fuck."

"Huh," said Taisei. "It's not actually that bad." And because in reality Taisei hated Yuudai, he committed another lick.

"Stop," Yuudai guttered out. "Please. You're a monster. I'm dying. Please. Will you just..." He flapped his hand. It was the only part of his body he could control. All the other bones inside him had flipped the wrong way over. Sweat tackied his skin. He wanted very badly to close his eyes and breathe, breathe, breathe. 

Do something now, he thought. You don't just get to lie there afterwards. Guilt wormed in his gut. And what did you do for him while he was working? 

"Get over here," said Yuudai, "you-- It's not fair if it's just me--"

Taisei laid down beside him. Rather, he collapsed beside Yuudai. His legs stuck out far beyond Yuudai's. "Aw. But you should enjoy it first." Taisei rested his forehead against Yuudai's temple. The ceiling wavered above them. All the bubbles inside Yuudai were popping one by one, quickly now.

"You should just let me do something. For you."

Taisei mumbled something into his hair. 

Yuudai tried another tack. "I want to. I want to do something for you. You did it for me."

"I said, it's okay," said Taisei. "You don't have to do anything."

"I want to," Yuudai snapped, "okay? That's what I said."

"If you wanted to--"

"That's what I said!"

"But I can't right now," said Taisei, apologetic all over. "I'm sorry... I tried really hard to hold on but you were so hot and..."

"Wait," said Yuudai. "You?"

Taisei rallied. "But in an hour we can try again!"

"Hold on," said Yuudai. "Did you come? In your pants?"

Taisei buried his face in Yuudai's shoulder. His hair was a sweated disaster. 

"It's so embarrassing. "

His arm moved with syrupy, dreamlike slowness around, a bow to circle Taisei's hunched shoulders. Taisei twitched fingers along Yuudai's chest, a series of nervous and fretful movements. 

"I'm sorry. You probably expected more. But I was just so..." His fingers, curling in, curling out. "So happy."

So it was Yuudai who turned to curl about Taisei, as if he could ever embrace the whole of Taisei. Yet he did, somehow. 

Yuudai swallowed. His mouth was too dry. A chill gripped his skin. Already the heat of his coming had bled out. 

"Stop. You're freaking out."

"I'm not freaking out."

"Look, I'm not mad." Yuudai tucked his head so his cheek rested on top of Taisei's head. "It's just that I guess I wanted to make you feel good too. And I don't... know what you want me to do now."

"You don't have to do anything," Taisei protested. "It's okay. I'm not freaking out, I promise."

"And I'm not good at this," said Yuudai, because he couldn't stop. He never could stop. "And I don't know what I'm supposed to do. And I want to do something because it shouldn't just be-- ugh! I don't need people to always help me! I can do stuff on my own!"

Taisei was quiet after that. Yuudai curled closer, though he was thinking of his couch, Hime, the familiar emptiness of his apartment. The fresh and lingering memory of Arata there again.

"You don't have to," said Taisei. "That's why we're your friends. So you don't have to do it on your own."

Yuudai turned his face to Taisei's throat. There were things he'd wanted to do, and now: now he was afraid. 

"See," said Yuudai, "I really don't know what to do."

"It's okay," said Taisei. "I didn't really know what I was doing."

Yuudai snorted. His shoulders felt strung together with a wire. He sighed.

"You should take your pants off. At least rinse them."

Taisei roused. "Okay. Stay here. I'll be right back. Oh. I'll get a blanket."

He puttered around the room, naked, then in clean boxers. A useless flash of longing shot through Yuudai at the sight of Taisei pulling the boxers over his ass, the startling sidelong glimpse of a soft cock. Yuudai turned his head to stare at the wall. 

Taisei fetched a blanket, then a wet cloth, then a glass of water for Yuudai, and Yuudai laid uselessly there on the futon, all the old dread creeping back into him. 

Finally Taisei returned for good. He took the empty glass and put it away on a shelf. The light, he turned out. The darkness permeated. Yuudai's nerves had twisted up like barbed wire on a bale. 

"Do you need anything?" 

"No," said Yuudai. "I'm fine."

Shuffling. The blanket lifted. Taisei slid in lanky and warm beside him. Yuudai was very still. A faint humming as Taisei arranged pillows. Then Taisei turned on to his side facing Yuudai and stretched a shadowed arm out to touch him.

"Hi," he said.

"Hey," said Yuudai. His fingers, knotted together across his chest, worked. 

Taisei folded his knees up. They bumped Yuudai's thighs. Taisei petted Yuudai's shoulder and far arm, and then, sighing, he rested his head on Yuudai's shoulder again.

What he expected? What had he wanted? He'd do something for Taisei, something filthy and life-altering that would leave Taisei speechless, and Taisei would: what? Stay with him? Sleep with him after? 

"I should go," said Yuudai. "Before your roommates get home."

Taisei wound his arms about Yuudai, and suddenly Yuudai was being lifted, his head pressed firmly to Taisei's dampened chest. 

"Please don't," said Taisei. "Please stay. No one will care, and I could drive you to work in the morning, and make you breakfast."

Cocooned by the blanket and by Taisei, Yuudai laid a hand on Taisei's elbow. A feeling of moving without purpose along a current had washed over him. 

"I go to work four hours before you do."

"I'll wake up early!"

"Your moped isn't made for two riders."

"I have another helmet," said Taisei, "you can sit in the back and hold on to me."

His hands traced asymmetrical circles across Yuudai's back. The beating of Taisei's heart made butterfly sounds in his ear.

"My jeans are ripped. So I have to get a new pair anyway."

"Then I'll take you back to your apartment first. And I can feed Hime for you!"

"She doesn't like it when anyone else feeds her," Yuudai grumbled, though Hime would eat out of anyone's hand. His own hand, fisted at Taisei's breast, began to unfurl.

Taisei's breath stirred Yuudai's hair. He felt the warmth of it on his ear. The sour sweat smell of sex lingered on Taisei's skin but Yuudai didn't mind it. His arms, though noodles, were firmly wound. The hair thick on his legs scratched pleasantly at Yuudai's feet.

"You don't have to stay," said Taisei.

Yuudai curled his big toe. It rubbed across Taisei's shin.

"It's okay," he said. "I'll stay. But you're driving me. Ack! Don't hug so tight," he complained, "I can't breathe."

"Sorry," said Taisei, without letting go, "I'm just really happy that you're here!"

Yuudai made a show of sighing and frowned against Taisei's chest so he'd feel it. The pillows smelled like Taisei. The blanket, too. 

"I should've done something for you," Yuudai mumbled. 

"Hm?"

He didn't look up. "I was... selfish. You made snacks and, uh, well... You know... You were _there_ ," he grouched, "you _know_. And I just let you... you know. When I should've at least--" He stuck his hands up and made a gesture.

"Huh? Oh!" said Taisei. "You mean with a hand! Oh-- well, it's my fault. I got too excited."

Yuudai burst. "Why?" 

Taisei laughed his confusion. "Why? Because it's _you_."

Yuudai looked up.

"And..." Taisei ducked his chin. His hair flopped. "That Hypraman joke was pretty dumb... I didn't think you'd laugh. But you did! And gahaha, wow. The way you laugh is so..."

"A horrible assault on the senses."

"Charming! And funny!" He went shy again. "And maybe it wasn't the best blowjob you've ever had but that's the most fun I've ever had." He coiled about Yuudai, curling as if for warmth, or like an octopus seeking shelter. "Nobody's ever made me feel that nice before."

Yuudai's throat clicked as he swallowed. He said, meanly, "Well, they're all assholes. For not wanting you."

"It's all right. Sometimes I can come on kind of strong--"

"Well, and sometimes I'm a piece of shit," said Yuudai, "but you still--" He cut off. 

Taisei trickled his fingers along Yuudai's crooked arm. He shuffled closer, somehow, till Yuudai had to turn his face up toward Taisei's throat to breathe. 

"I like you," said Taisei. He kissed Yuudai's cheek. "I like you. I like you," and Yuudai thought, you do. You do. You do. Until Taisei pulled just far enough away to touch their noses, and Yuudai looked up at his dark, shadowed eyes, and he believed it. At least for a little while, he believed it.

*

Jiro staggered into the kitchen a half hour past three and screamed. Yuudai spat coffee in his face. Twin crashes sounded on either side of the main room.

"Yuudai?!"

"Fucking-- Sakana." Yuudai spat more coffee into the sink. 

A bedroom door slammed open. Taro burst out wielding a baseball bat. "Where's 'em?" 

"Perfect," Yuudai snapped. "This is exactly the stupid shit I expected this morning."

"It's just Yuudai, Taro, put the bat down." 

Taro made a disgusted sound. "He's finally come over to kill us."

"Oh, my god," muttered Yuudai.

"Oh, my god," muttered Jiro. 

They exchanged an uneasy look. 

"Yuudai, you--" Jiro, trying to ignore Yuudai's shirtlessness, caught on the sweatpants. Grey and well-worn, they said in English up the left leg: BADASS MAN. "Wait. Are those Taisei's pants?"

The other bedroom door smashed open. 

"Taro, nooooooo!" 

Yuudai dropped the coffee mug; it cracked in half on the floor. Jiro jumped half on the counter. Taisei, staggering undressed into the kitchen, threw himself on top of Yuudai. They collapsed together, Yuudai snarling, Taisei blanketing him.

"Uh," said Jiro.

"Get off!" said Yuudai.

"I have to protect you!" said Taisei.

"Who?" said Yuudai. " _Jiro?_ "

"Um," said Taisei, "no! You! Obviously!"

Taro stared down at them. So did Jiro. Taro squinted and said, "There's a lot of nudity in this room."

"Ohhhhhhh, my god, hahaha, wow, uh, congrats!" said Jiro. "I'm so--happy! For you guys! But look at the time! I should probably! Go! Somewhere else right now!"

"Yes," said Yuudai. "That would be a very smart choice. If you went somewhere very far away from me and the _many knives in this kitchen_."

Taro rested the baseball bat on his shoulder and said, "Hey, Tai, is this why you bought me those movie tickets? So you could screw--"

Jiro clothes-lined his brother and dragged him out of the room. When the door had shut behind them, Taisei let Yuudai up.

"See, they were supportive!" said Taisei. "That wasn't so bad."

"You're right," said Yuudai. "It was worse." He scrubbed at his face. "And I broke the mug."

Taisei picked up a piece of the broken coffee mug. "That's okay," he said. "We can fix it."

"Or you could just throw it away."

"Mm." Taisei's eyes drooped.

"Don't go to sleep. You still have to drive me to my apartment."

"Mm-mm. Stay here."

"Stop! There's broken mug pieces all over the floor."

Taisei thrust his arms gracelessly out to Yuudai. "Carry me to bed."

"I'll throw you away with the mug," Yuudai threatened.

"Make me coffee," said Taisei, his hands limp, arms still raised. "And I'll buy you new jeans."

"If I make you coffee," said Yuudai, "will you put on some actual people clothes?"

"If you make me coffee," said Taisei, "I'll love you forever."

Yuudai went scarlet. "Make your own coffee. I'm getting dressed. We have to leave soon!"

"Okay," said Taisei. He yawned hugely. His jaw cracked. "I'll love you anyway."

"You're so!" said Yuudai. "You! You can't just! Ugh!"

"Okay. I love you. No cream, please," said Taisei. "Just coffee."

Yuudai set the machine to brew. He was flushed, his face hot, and he was smiling because he was an idiot. 

"Why are you so happy? Aren't you embarrassed Jiro knows? And--" Just thinking it made his throat close up. Ugh! The Sakanas. "Taro."

"Why would I be embarrassed?"

"Because they know. That we fucked."

"I don't mind," said Taisei. "I'm glad they know."

"That we fucked?"

"That you like me."

Yuudai could have strangled him for that. Instead he poured him a fresh mug of coffee, shooed Taisei away from the mess that needed cleaning, and paused a moment to kiss him. Why not? He had no dignity left to lose. Taisei's mouth was sleep-soft and stale. 

Taisei said, "You _do_ like me."

Yuudai said, "Don't tell anyone. You'll ruin my reputation," and Taisei smiled and Yuudai almost didn't mind that he'd have to face Jiro and Taro again at work.

**Author's Note:**

> "What happened with Arata?" No time to contemplate! 
> 
> I haven't written in months so of course this is my comeback. Gently. Gently!
> 
> Please practice safe sex. Don't get distracted like these nerds did.


End file.
